Live wildland fire map
About the map
A live map of every active wildfire in the United States
The Journeyman fire map puts current wildfires, fire perimeters, fire weather, smoke and air quality on one free map, built by wildland firefighters for crews, families and anyone watching a fire near home. Select a fire to see its acres, containment, cause and how long it has been burning.
What's on the map
- Active fires
- Every wildland fire reported to the national interagency system (NIFC WFIGS), with its size, containment, cause, fire behavior and the team managing it.
- Fire perimeters
- The latest mapped edge of each fire, from infrared flights and GPS walks, with the mapped acres inside it.
- Satellite heat detections
- Thermal hotspots from the NASA FIRMS VIIRS satellites, which often show new fire activity before it is reported.
- Fire weather
- National Weather Service red flag warnings and fire weather watches, plus the Storm Prediction Center day 1 fire weather outlook.
- Smoke
- Smoke plumes seen by NOAA satellites (HMS analysis) and the NOAA near-surface smoke forecast.
- Air quality
- Live EPA AirNow air quality index areas, from Good to Hazardous.
- Radar, clouds and lightning
- Precipitation radar, GOES satellite cloud imagery from NASA, and lightning strikes from the last 15 minutes.
- Aircraft
- Live positions of air tankers, helicopters and other aircraft over fires, from public ADS-B flight tracking, refreshed every 15 seconds.
- Past fires and regions
- The largest fire perimeters since 2001 and the Geographic Area Coordination Center (GACC) regions.
Replay a fire, or twenty years of them
- 3D fire replay
- Watch how a fire grew, map by map, on 3D terrain: every mapped perimeter in order, with acres, containment and the weather.
- Burn history since 2005
- Every mapped wildfire of 1,000 acres or more, season by season, left on the map as burn scars.
Questions
How often does the map update?
Fires and perimeters are checked every 5 minutes while the map is open, the same interval NIFC refreshes its public feed. Weather, smoke and air quality layers update as often as their agencies publish them.
Why do the acres and containment differ from the news?
A fire has two sizes: the reported size the incident team puts in its daily situation report, and the mapped size inside the latest perimeter. The map shows whichever of the two is newer, so it can run ahead of a morning news update.
Can I share a fire?
Yes. Open any fire and the address in your browser becomes a link to that fire. Anyone who opens it lands on the same fire.
Is the fire map free?
Yes, for everyone, with no account. Wildland firefighters and crews get more in The Journeyman app.
Not for emergency use. Map data can lag events on the ground. For evacuation orders, follow your county sheriff and local emergency management, and call 911 in an emergency.
Every data source and how we use itOpen the map full screen3D fire replayBurn historyThe Journeyman for wildland firefighters